Tribeca film festival to go live online

Popularly known as the spring film festival ‘Tribeca’ was launched in 2001 by Robert De Niro. This was an initiative to support growth & culture in Manhattan, USA post the September 11 terror attacks will open up its screenings to online viewers for the very first time. The festival is said to kickoff from April 20 till May 1.
Six feature films and nine short movies from the 2011 festival will be streamed over the internet live to subscribers at the same time as they are being shown at the event. A further nine short-film “favourites” from past events will be available to view, and organisers are also promising coverage from the event’s star-studded red carpet, its opening press conference and its awards show, all in real-time.
A spokesperson of the event told The Guardian newspaper that, “The online festival will host the Tribeca Q&A, which will offer online audiences the opportunity to engage with not only each other, but industry experts including Brian Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, film-makers David Gordon Green and Zach Braff, in addition to Tribeca’s Jane Rosenthal, Geoff Gilmore, and Nancy Schafer; and many more. This interactive platform will boost audience participation and bring never-before content directly to the audiences.”
Some of the movies that will be screened include Donor Unknown, the documentary tale of a woman conceived via artificial insemination who goes in search of her real father; and Flowers of Evil, described as a rootless story of young love between Gecko, an Algerian-French hotel bellman and parkourer; and Anahita, an Iranian student forced to leave her country for her own safety after the controversial elections in 2009.
Another attraction of the Tribeca Film Festival that promises to tap in audiences from world over includes a directorial debut from Vera Farmiga, which was much appreciated at its premiere in Sundance. Documentaries based on the lives of Elton John and Ozzy Osbourne and a comic western which counts, as the highest-grossing Chinese movie of all time is also part of the programme schedule.